“One’s destination
is never a place, but
simply a new way of
seeing things”
Henry MIller

Publication
Concept:
The Circus Installment.
Each issue is dedicated
to a genre of
performance arts.
Issue one: The Magical
World of The Circus
The entire publication
has a circus theme
from photography to
creative writing.
Photography, Styling,
Layout, Editorial and
Editing:
Rebecca Wall

When I Grow Up I Want To Be In The
Circus...
Some children want to be astronauts, some zookeepers or firemen; I always wanted to be in the
circus.
It was a warm summer’s evening in June. The lights were bright and the music loud. The fact that it
was the evening made it somehow more magical, for a child there is something unknown and exciting
about when the day comes to a close and the sun goes down. It is after all at night that Father Christmas, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy all make their mysterious appearances that - despite our
best efforts to stay awake – we always missed. So going to Zippos Circus at nightfall made it all the
more exhilarating and thrilling. We handed over our tickets and walked into the Big Top. Once the audience had taken their seats, the lights went down and everything went quiet. I had been to the theatre
before, but I knew before it had even started this was altogether different: I could feel the hum in the
air, as though everyone in the audience had drawn their breath - just as people do before something
exciting begins. The ringmaster entered. Resplendent. He welcomed us all and, ever the perfect host,
introduced the many acts. The variety was almost too much for my young imagination: from clowns
to fire-eaters; trapeze artists to a unicyclist, animal trainers to tight-rope walkers, performing tricks I
did not even know were possible.

“I could feel the hum in the air, as though everyone in the audience
had drawn their breath”
But there was one act that soared high above the rest in my mind, an act that for the next decade I
would be dreaming of becoming: the contortionist. Just one loan woman in the middle of the tent, yet
she was demanding the whole audience’s attention. Time seemed to slowdown, the onlookers were
quiet yet tense. She began by balancing on two tiny pieces of wood elevated from the ground by thin
metal poles, holding her entire body weight on her hands. This was impressive enough to me, but she
did not stop there. Then came the real skill. She began to bend and stretch her body in ways that did
not seem natural. Bending her back in half so far she touched her forehead with her toes. Then she
removed the wooden blocks and began to further twist and warp her body into strange shapes, as
though she did not even have bones. I was mesmerised.A small transparent box was then brought
onto the stage. I sat confused at why they were interrupting her act by drawing attention to a silly little
box. Then it became clear. She lay with her chest on the floor and brought her legs over her head to
touch the ground in front of her face. She shuffled forward towards the tiny box, contorted as though
she was a rag doll. What was most extraordinary was she did not appear to be in pain; in fact she
looked quite relaxed. As though she was not doing anything unusual, just part of her everyday routine,
which of course it was. Her strength and control was so impressive; I sat awestruck, unable to draw
my eyes away from this amazing spectacle. It was freaky, abnormal, weird … incredible. My destiny
became clear to me: “This is what I will do,” I thought. “I am going to be in the Circus!” As the show
continued I sat there, pondering my future, taking it all in.
“How could I be in the circus, how could I become one of them?”
------------------Fourteen years later, there I stood again, looking up at the red and yellow sign. I had steeled myself for
disappointment. I had grown up, travelled the world, seen more spectacles, met more people; I was

not going to be impressed by a travelling circus anymore. I had the typical arrogance of every young
adult revisiting their youth. Believing myself to be too old and wise for this pastime - the feeling you
get when watching one of your favourite childhood movies. Instead of sitting there open-mouthed in
wonder, you pick apart everything you once so wholly and unquestionably believed.
This time it was a crisp autumn day in November. My favourite type of day - when the sun is
shining, the sky is bluer than blue, but you still need to wrap your woollen scarf round tight all the way
to your nose. I drove myself to Old Deer Park - the new location for the circus but still equally close to
my house - parked and crossed the road to the ticket booth. “One ticket for the 12 0’clock showing
please,” I said. I had decided to go alone, something I would obviously never have done as a child, but
it felt right. I could quietly soak up the experience without having to analyse or discuss what I felt with
someone else. I could just enjoy it, on my own, in my own little world.
Outside I was hit by the smell of horse manure, one of those smells that should be disgusting but is
strangely pleasant. I walked out of the sun and into the big blue and yellow tent. I felt the sawdust
beneath my feet, now the manure smell had given way to popcorn and candyfloss. A heavily made
up, extremely smiley woman appeared, and led me through the red velvet curtains and into the main
arena. There it was: the stage, the audience, the circus folk. They were selling flashing glowing sticks,
once taken home sit in a draw with no real use. Everything just as it should be, although somewhat
smaller than I remember. I was struck by the rustic and worn feel of it all, not something I would have
noticed as a child, but you could tell this was a circus that truly travelled the length and breadth of the
country, the way a traditional circus should. It began with the clowns whistling and running into the
centre of the tent. A man and women both dressed in red and white, the infamous red clown nose
slightly smaller than I remembered, the shapeless baby grow giving way to a tutu for the woman and
red jeans for the man. These were clowns with a modern flare. After the clowns, the acts flowed with
ease from one to the next. Every person bounced off each other, knowing exactly where the next was
going to step or when they were going to speak. Each prop or apparatus was brought on at exactly
the right time, each person pre-empting the next ones step. They were a well-oiled machine, running
smoothly, slick and with ease. I could see the sense of family, the stolen glances to one another, a little
smile, even a laugh. This is what drew me in all those years ago, the thought of being there on stage,
performing, making people happy, and doing it all with your friends.

“There it was: the stage, the audience, the circus folk”
It felt more intimate this time round, personal. In the intermission the ringmaster called out two
names, two little twin sisters who were celebrating their fourth birthday. Their parents brought them
down to the stage. They were dressed in red and sparkly dresses and we all sat and sang happy
birthday to them. I could not help but smile - that was me once. I felt connected to it all, as though for
those two hours we were part of the circus family.
There were new acts of course, as their family adapted and changed through the years, people would
come and go bringing with them new skills. I was not quite sat there in astonishment and shock as
my seven year old self had been. I had seen more impressive acts in the time that had passed –
courtesy of the internet. I admired their skill; I knew that it must have taken hours of practise to
perfect that strange foot juggling, and riding a motorbike in a loop so that they went upside down.
There was one thing missing though, the act, to me, that was the reason for revisiting the circus. It
was what I had dreamt of becoming for years, the strange and bending contortionist. I should have
been devastated, heart broken that she was not there. The circus with no contortionist. You could not
have Broadway without the singing. Yet somehow it did not seem to matter. The circus still had the
ability to capture my attention and not let go, contortionist or no contortionist. I still laughed, and sat
there grinning from ear to ear. It was not about that one particular act anymore, it was about being
transported back to being that naively optimistic child again. About the feeling I got on that first visit to
the circus, a warm feeling in my stomach, an excited buzz and a smile I could not wipe off my face.

The truth is I still wanted to run away with the circus, nothing had changed, not really. As it drew to
an end all the acts came on the stage to take their bows, the audience clapped and cheered standing
up to show their appreciation. The ringmaster took to the stage once more. Here he was: the man of
the hour, the master of ceremonies. He removed his hat, gestured to the audience, bowed his head,
looked up and said:
“Remember you’re never too old, you’re never too young and you’re never too cool, to come to the
circus.”
I could have sworn he was looking right at me.
Rebecca Wall

Too Much Too Young
The magazine shows a young ingénue sitting on
a table dressed in a thigh length lace dress, with
an over sized glass bottle wedged between her
legs. She looks up provocatively through strands of
tousled hair at the camera. But this magazine is no
top-shelf publication; it is one of the most respected
glossy fashion publications in the industry. The
photo is of seventeen-year old actress Dakota
Fanning, for the Marc Jacobs Lola Perfume
campaign, and has since been banned by Britain’s
Advertising Standards Authority because it “could
be seen to sexualize a child”.
Young Hollywood seems to have taken over not just
our movie screens but our magazines too. Hailee
Steinfeld star of True Grit, is currently the face of
Miu Miu, a brand whose target market is over
twenties. She is only fourteen. Younger sister of
Dakota, Elle Fanning, is just thirteen years old and
already the star of Steven Speilberg’s blockbuster
Super 8. She has also landed the Marc by Marc
Jacobs campaigns - something models and actors
twice her age may only dream of. Marc Jacobs has
always been a designer who does not exactly play
by the rules, which adds to his charm and eccentric
character. So it would be unlikely that we would see the same generic advertisement campaigns as
other designers from him. But at her tender age is it right that she is selling these clothes when she
would barely fit the smallest size?
This trend to use such young models is not a modern one. Twiggy was the tender age of sixteen
when she was plastered all over the Daily Express as the face of ‘66. Jean Shrimpton had booked the
ultimate job for a model, a Vogue cover, by eighteen. At this age most of their peers were still looking
for their first jobs, finding love and living with their parents. Not exactly the demographic to be
spending thousands of pounds on the latest couture gowns. So why is it that we see the teenagers as
the perfect models to sell these clothes? Would it be so awful if we saw a thirty-year-old with maybe

“Are we creating an impossible aesthetic for others to maintain?”
even a hint of a wrinkle at the eye?
Does a thirty year old really want to buy clothes that a pre-teenager is selling? Is this creating a deeper
problem: by putting these young people on the pages of magazines are we creating an impossible
aesthetic, for others to maintain? These girls have barely hit puberty, have that flawless skin
Photoshop can only dream of recreating, and have not got an ounce of fat on their tiny frames. Sure
they look amazing, but anyone past 15 is never going to recreate this. With the media placing such an
emphasis on the way we look these days, and glossy magazines being blamed for the ever
rising number of people going under the knife, are we just encouraging more people to go to extreme
lengths to achieve a youthful look?
Statistics published by the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons, show that over 38,000
procedures were carried out by association members in the UK alone in 2010 a 5 per cent rise from
2009. This is not including non-surgical procedures such as Botox or filler injections. It has become

all too normal to hear of people having a little nip-tuck here and there. A friend of my mother’s told me
she recently had Botox at her dentist. It is a worrying thing when something so potentially
damaging becomes so common, but society’s thirst for youth has meant that it is just as common
as going to get your teeth checked out as it is to get a lethal injection into your face. It is difficult not
to blame the media for this obsession with remaining youthful, when all we see are edited photos of

“A friend of my mothers told me she recently had Botox at her
dentist”
teenagers without an imperfection in sight.
French Vogue recently felt the wrath of angry parents on the subject of the over-sexualisation of
children. Their December 2010 edition saw an editorial with the ten-year-old model Thylane Blondeau.
The pictures saw the young girl dressed in low cut dresses, five inch heels and jewellery probably
worth the price of an average hatchback. All with a face full of make up, posing on leopard print bed,
staring alluringly into the camera. The pose is not anything out of the ordinary for French Vogue but
this is a girl who has not even started secondary school. Many felt the poses were far too
provocative and seductive for her age, and the setting suggested something far too sexual for a ten
year old to even understand. From an art perspective there is no denying the photographs were
beautiful, but I cannot say I would be able to be so subjective if it was my child.
In the fashion industry, and especially the competitive world of magazines, there is a pressure to stay
on top. The quest to give readers something new and exciting, often leads to quite shocking
photographs, editorials and articles. Vogue is undoubtedly at the top of its game but many of its
readers will be mothers who find it uncomfortable to see children in clothes they would buy.
The Dakota Fanning Marc Jacobs campaigns have got people talking and even those who may not
usually have taken any notice of yet another perfume advert have something to say about these
photos. But at what expense? Surely negative press cannot be good for the sales of the perfume mothers are not going to want to buy their daughters a perfume which has been associated with the
over sexualisation of children.
It is not just high fashion at blame of over-sexualising children. The clothes high street stores produce
for young girls can often be seen as too grown up or suggestive for the ages of the children they say
on the labels. Disney had to stop production on some novelty underwear they produced for children
as young as four with the words from the High School Musical film on them. Mothers were outraged
when in the multipack set of underwear, one pair had the words “dive in” on the front. New rules have
been set since June 2011 to try to crack down on sexually suggestive clothing for children. Padded
bras for young children have been banned, along with many inappropriate slogan t-shirts, including
one item by Playboy with the words ‘future porn star’, which was aimed at young girls.
The world of fashion will never stop surprising. It is one of the biggest industries in the world today
and there will always be a fight from the big names in fashion to stay on top. In fashion if you are
being talked about - regardless of the subject - it is deemed a good thing because at least you have
not been forgotten. We will never be able to predict what the creative people behind the brands will
come up with next to keep us entertained, I just have to hope that we do not see babies in gowns and
heels on the runway next.
Rebecca Wall

The Circus Comes
By Night
Editorial images
produced for Cirque
publication.
Theme and inspiration:
The Travelling Circus
Styling inspired by
the circus characters,
clowns, acrobats and
the Ring Master
Photography and
Styling: Rebecca Wall

The Changing
Faces of The Clown
Modern take on clown
inspired make up and
styling.
Produced for Cirque
publication
Make-up, Hair and
Photography:
Rebecca Wall

Hatmosphere is a company I set up at with a
group of peers selling slogan woolen hats. The
hats featured a series of colloquial,
humorous slogans. We conducted market
research to determine a gap in the market for this
style hat. As a group we covered every aspect of
the business from marketing, advertisement,
selling, finances and producing the product. It has
given me a good understanding of what it takes
to run a business.

Mode Voyager offers
tours behind the iconic
fashion houses, with
exclusive access into
their worlds.
Voyagers are fully
encompassed in the
brand, with a choice
of Mulberry, Hermes,
Louis Vuitton, and
Gucci. Featuring brand
secrets, meeting the
designers, access to
the factories, show
tickets, after parties
and personal stylists.